Ch. 3: The Heart of the Fish
(Return toArheled) Ronnie and his friends finished unloading a lot faster than they had loaded up. Bell claimed she was tasting cheeseburger every time she burped. “How is life in your new family?” Brooke said to her. “Hey, they were my family before.” “You know what I mean.” “It’s kinda fun. It’s really great to have Mom around to actually fuss over how I look. Dad thinks I look fine no matter how I dress. And having Forest around all the time is weird. He can’t even say ‘Boo’ to a goose.” “Boo.” said Forest. “I take it back.” groaned Bell. Everyone laughed. “Hey Ronnie, come on out and I’ll show you around.” She led him and the others all over the yard, pointing out the shed that caved from the snow this winter and the cherry tree she fell out of and the flowerbed and this and that, the others tagging along half in derision and half in laughter. They all left after a while and Ronnie set up his bed and unpacked his clothes and began “assembling” his household. It was so weird to have running water and electricity, let alone hot water. He suspected he was going to miss the fireplace. Would he even be able to sleep in a boring modern interior like this? But it was nice to actually use his television and watch a movie. The next few days he spent working. A few people from church wanted yard work, and an antique and used furniture store on Main St in Winsted called Cathy’s Cupboard called him on Saturday to help move furniture. Interesting how the people you don’t like are always the ones you get thrown into contact with, Ronnie thought as he sat in Mr. Slocum’s passenger seat, being driven back from a job at Slocum’s house up on Torringford Rd. He was a tall man with longish mouse-like hair, a pinched squinting face, and a high nasally voice that irritated Ronnie no end, especially when it sounded high and loud above the congregation completely out of tune. He had a placating manner, was quite rich and apparently took seriously the duty of wealth to be generous. He had bought Ronnie a party-size pizza (of which he ate one-third and Ronnie the rest) for lunch, as well as paying him $100 for an 8-hour day. A conservative and more traditionalist Catholic, he and Ronnie could discuss obscure aspects of theology for hours, or would if Ronnie had cared to cultivate him. But Ronnie was an odd sort of person in one way: he never cared much for the company of other men. With female friends it was different, but around men he was quiet, precise and businesslike in manner, and ultimately reserved and aloof. Cathy’s Cupboard had found him in an odd way: he’d been biking home from an errand and was on the way to Mass, passing the store on the way through Winsted. The owner had needed help with a large cabinet and was standing out front to catch the first one to pass. He was a tall stout bearded man, balding, with large laid-back eyes and a broad drawling accent; you almost expected him to say “Waaal.” “Do you want to make $10 in five minutes?” he’d drawled. Ronnie had helped him lift the cabinet, smiling ironically as he would have helped for free if simply asked, and offered himself if there was more work. There was; in the sense of navigating insane narrow stairs trying to manipulate impossibly large and clumsy pieces of furniture. After a day of preforming conjuring tricks of this sort, Ronnie was tired out. Sunday was once again warm; it had been almost chilly since his move, with frosts on the ballpark fields. He laughed as he headed out to his bike, dressed for Sunday: it was spring, it was spring again! The air was coldish but felt like it was going to be quite warm soon. He exulted in the ride up. Forsythias were sprawling masses of luminous, almost lemony yellow. Here and there the types of cherry he called “bridal trees” were in full bloom, every twig thick and furry with white and pink-hearted blossoms, and the whole tree a soft white like a bride. He observed all sorts of things about the Still River Valley that he never had before, the spiky green sedge-clumps bearded with old grass, the way the rolling wall of Case Mt looked against the deep blue sky on his left, the high white mountain of sand behind the Westwood Products factory, most of it quarried away. He had thought at first it was manmade, the sand looked so perfect, white and stoneless; but the striated layers and trees growing at the rear of it convinced him it was in fact natural, a deposit in the ancient lake that once filled the valley, left between ice and shore as the last shreds of ice melted slowly down. And the lake had drained when the Still carved the rough gorge down through the fissured rocks north of Winsted towards Riverton, leaving the hill of sand to stand thirty feet above the lake bed that had been. Only the flat marshes of Still River remained of that body of water. He passed the northern end of the bike trail that followed the rail bed. On the left was a sheer cliff, a small quarry delved by some private company. Something about it made Ronnie suddenly curious for a closer look. Leaving his bike he climbed up the shifting pile of bright grey-white gravel that shut in the quarry from the road. It was a deep enough cut in the steep mountainside; the cliff was a good hundred and fifty feet in height, and the rolling faces of smooth granite climbed on above it for a couple hundred feet more. The new-green trees were soft and pale below the blue sky. The quarry was a few hundred feet across, active still, to judge from the newly-broken rock piled by the wall. Salmon-hued feldspar made odd patterns in the dark grey granite. Ronnie looked closer. That area towards the bottom…the thicker vein of dull pinkish rock, where intersecting bands seemed to meet…that was a really queer shape. Forked at one end…branches going off there, and there…it was just like a fish. A fish with long, trailing, tropical fins. A fish in the rock layers of Case Mt: that was “fish in a buried case” all right. Pulling some paper and a pencil from his backpack, Ronnie proceeded to copy the graceful yet jagged pattern in the rock. When he got to church he was pleasantly surprised to see Travel Lane sitting in the back. She looked up with a start when he genuflected and sat down in her pew, and then her face lit up. “Hey, Ronnie!” she whispered. “Nice to see you here.” he answered, smiling. After he knelt and prayed for a few seconds, as most Catholics do when they first enter their pews, he showed her the drawing and explained what he’d found. “That is really cool. Can we go see it after Mass?” “Certainly. Oh, reminds me. You’re not a Catholic, so please don’t go up to receive Communion.” “That’s fine. I understand.” After Mass they went up front to say hello to the Midwinters. Lara was talking animatedly to a little old man and ignoring everything else, so they passed wisecracks with Lilac until Lara came over. She was fascinated by the drawing and told them it had exactly the same pattern as the fish she’d noticed in the Milky Way. Ronnie and Travel put his bike in Travel’s trunk and drove south down Winsted Rd. “It’s so nice out.” sighed Travel. “What a pity the water is still so cold.” “It is not; I can stay in a full two minutes.” “You liar, you got me in that one time and I’m never going to trust you now.” “Hey, Brooke lied too.” “She’s crazy anyway. She doesn’t count.” She paused and looked over at Ronnie. He had a really queer expression on his face. “What’s wrong?” Ronnie shook himself. “Nothing. I just felt creepy all of a sudden. Like someone really evil was staring at me. But it’s gone now.” “Hmm.” said Travel. “You been getting enough sleep?” “Are you doubting my superior extrasensory powers?” They drove on a little farther. Travel turned the radio on and started singing along with the music while Ronnie groaned. “What’s wrong, you don’t like my music?” “That’s one of the two possibilities.” “Oh really, and what’s the other?” “Ah, that I won’t answer on grounds it might tend to incriminate me.” “Hey, if you’re insulting my voice you can walk!” “I didn’t say that!” Travel turned left down the steep entry ramp. A private road went ahead straight, over a bridge across the Still, and up to service several isolated houses and businesses. On the right was a parking area paved with white marble process. She parked and they walked up the road. The quarry was close by. “Wow, the sun was just shining.” Travel marveled as clouds suddenly darkened the sky. “That’s odd.” muttered Ronnie. “Those clouds weren’t there…” They climbed up the gravel pile. It was much cooler now and there was a queer feeling, ominous and tense, in the air. At the top Travel gazed at the curious fish-shaped pattern and shivered. “I was going to suggest we go on a hike, but it seems to be about to storm.” she said. Ronnie did not answer. He was staring farther down the gravel pile. Two other people were standing there, a round-headed ruddy man and a strikingly beautiful young woman who seemed to be wearing almost nothing. Her pale golden hair blew about her face, which was concealed by black sunglasses like holes in her head. Both of them were looking at Ronnie. “Travel, we have to get out of here.” he said urgently. “Who are they?....and why are they staring at us like that?...” Ronnie seized her hand and dragged her down the pile. “Hurry.” he muttered. Stones bounced and slid under their feet. He did not know why, but that pair…something, some unidentifiable menance and power, radiated from them. Danger. Black lightning struck the gravel in front of them. Travel looked behind them. The tanned woman stood above them, and more lightning blossomed from her hands. Travel screamed as the bolts fused the gravel ahead of them, forcing them to scramble backward. “This way!” Ronnie shouted. They hurried over a pile of broken rocks, making for the rising mountainside. On the left the ground dropped into a hollow below the road, swampy and flooded, from which the mountain rose steep and sudden. No more lightning seemed to be coming, but looking back they saw the woman and the man between them and the road, and odd little smiles were on their distant faces. “Where are we going?” panted Travel as they scrambled on all fours up the hill. “To cover.” Ronnie hissed. “Less noise. They are hunting. We might be able to hide.” Pulling themselves from tree to tree, ignoring the swarming blackflies and gnats and their own sweat, they struggled endlessly upward. At length Ronnie came to a hollow masked with hemlocks and deep leaves, and they scrambled in and pulled leaves over themselves. Stifling and steaming they lay side by side in the leaves, their breath wheezing. Slowly their bodies cooled down and relaxed. Time went by. There was no sound on the mountain. “Maybe they’ve gone.” whispered Travel. They waited about fifteen minutes. Still no sound of anyone climbing, either up from below or down from above. With a rustle Ronnie and Travel got up, shedding leaves, and peered carefully around. The forest was bright and sunny, and the eerie clouds were gone. “I think we’ve lost them.” said Travel. “I don’t know.” said Ronnie dubiously. “They might simply know a better way up. Or they’re staking out our car.” “Well, if they do try climbing up we can throw rocks at them. Ronnie, who were they?” “My guess? Who knows. Magicians or witches, most likely. Though I never heard of real-life witches shooting lightning. That’s usually done in fantasy books.” “You know,” Travel mused, “there was something familiar about her…maybe I’ve seen her before.” “Come on, let’s get moving.” Ronnie urged. “We’re going to circle around and try getting back to your car.” They headed along the mountain. The quarry was behind them. The forest was closing in, beeches with tiny new-green leaves and blue-white trunks as well as dark green hemlocks, young and triangular. Dark-grey rocks poked up out of the soil. Ronnie suddenly threw out an arm, stopping Travel. Ahead the forest parted in a glade under big oaks, and the round-headed man was waiting at their feet. He smiled awfully and came toward them. Back through the forest they hurried. They were running now, a numb lead panic in their hearts. Thought seemed clogged. Escape was all they could think of. Trees rose up in their way. Branches whipped them. Twigs and logs seemed to be everywhere to slow them down. The helpless terror of trapped animals filled them. At last they came out on the level forest at the top of the mountain. They drew breath, looking around. No one was coming. On through the forest they trudged, the trees blurring in their sight. The new leaves formed a speckled shade under the trees. On, on, they had to get on. Farther and farther. If they went far enough they might escape. The forest was open and Maylike. Trout lilies bloomed amid violets. It was warm and pleasant on the top of Case Mt, but the sun seemed glaring and hard, almost sneering, as if determined to show them and mark them out for their hunters. They glanced up fearfully, now at the malevolent sun, now at the silent trees. “Let’s stop.” said Travel. “I need a rest. Do you even know the way back?” “Winsted Rd is at the bottom of the cliff.” he answered. They sat there for a while. The hazy sunshine felt good after the terrified flight. Ronnie gazed absently at an old black cherry nearby. The trunk seemed weird, somehow. Bulging curiously. Was he imagining it, or… It seemed weird because it was smoking. Up from the earth and out from the tree tongues of flame were rising, leaping, into a column of fire ten feet high; and then the flames collapsed inside two figures standing under the tree, and were gone. The blond beauty and the ruddy man stood before them. Into the forest they fled, racing now for dear life. Travel stumbled and fell, but even as Ronnie whirled to help her she was clawing herself erect, a wild light in her panicked eyes. Sticks snapped as they were caught between their hastening legs; others, stouter, tripped them. They floundered among rocks. They whacked bushes aside. At last sheer lack of breath drove them to stop. Gasping, bent over, they scanned the forest frantically. It was empty. There was no pursuit. Not saying a word they rested, numbed now, a dull mindless fear pressing them down. Long before they were ready they stumbled on, through great ancient boulders tossed and broken, up onto rounded summits of land among great reaching oaks. Their eyes could no longer see the land around them. Colors did not register. Shapes passed in one eye and out the other. Trees. Yes. A rock. A log that might trip; forgotten as soon as avoided. Low twigs. Duck under them. Look, look everywhere for the enemy. They are anywhere. Duck! I thought I heard something. No, just a bluejay. Up and on. On. Ever on. We must keep moving, or they will find us. Fire leaped up in a great billowing cough from a rock ten feet away. Scrambling like startled squirrels they bolted through the rocks and crouched, leaden eyes staring wildly here, there and everywhere. The dreadful laughter of their enemies sounded some way off. More fireballs erupted before and behind. They got up and plodded hurriedly onward, shambling down over the mountain. They could not run. They could not hide. They could not flee. Upon the summit of a great rock the woman stood, and flames roared up from her hands. They looked behind, and the man was walking toward them, smiling, black lightning flickering in his eyes. Helpless fury and bitter despair washed over them. They could run all they wished and still their enemy would find them. They were helpless. Their enemies were magicians. Their enemies had powers beyond comprehension, and they had nothing. “Ronnie, we have to run!” cried Travel. “Get behind me.” said Ronnie. Blank defeat and black sorrow were in his eyes. “We have to!” “Run where?” he shouted, his awful grief as wild as the mountain around them. “To what? We are humans, Travel, only humans! Mortal man, doomed to die! We have no powers and what powers we had, we lost in the Garden! We are helpless! Our spirits are bound, and shut in our bodies; we have no power but the tools we shape out of the earth! We cannot run, Travel. We cannot fight. All that we can do is to die!” Travel clutched him with both hands. The witches smiled, fire suddenly leaping in their hands as they stepped toward them. “Soon the Six will be only Four, and two of them will be traitors.” said the man. “I have no desire to kill you. Only to change you. For I am Cornello.” He opened his awful eyes. A weird scream burst from Travel. Her flesh began to shimmer, and so did Ronnie’s where she held him…a feeling of dizziness, of vertigo, gripped both of them….and then, in an implosion of blue-misted air, they vanished. Lights whirled and wheeled around them. Blue and silver, cold and tingling, their curious glance like heatless fire. Palaces of some transparent gleaming stone. Golden darts of fire shooting past, and then they wheeled through blackness lit with dusty red and speckled white…. Now the lights were whirling closer, eerie pale stars, shapes that flickered and that danced like people upon the midnight blueness, and transparent mountains were underneath, and now they could hear voices, the sad silver voices of the singing of the stars. '' '' Empty days, each one the same '' ''Meaningless, encased in pain '' ''Waiting, waiting, endless sighs '' ''Staring at the barren sky '' ''Empty days will never end '' ''Vacant nights leave me unchanged '' ''Lost to light, adrift, deranged '' ''Waiting, waiting, while the sky '' ''Sheds its’ stars as though it cries '' ''Vacant nights will never end '' ''Absent sun and tearlike stars '' ''Torn away from where they are '' ''Waiting, waiting while light dies '' ''I watch the light gone from the sky '' ''Starlight fades within my eyes '' ''Hollow dawn and lying morn '' ''Fake, its’ light, so faded, worn '' ''Waiting, waiting for the lie '' ''False lips to say what hides… '' '' '' Mountains tossed as the Road whirled them on, and they saw strange and stately figures standing motionless on every crest, and yet they could see through crag and stone as if the Earth itself was gone to mist. And then the arrows flew, and the terrible bowman shooting them came into view for a moment, all crystal and gold, and he raised a mighty horn to his lips and blew, and stars scattered before that blast like sand before a wind, and blank and black and empty were the countless growing voids… There was a flicker of white. With a crash shapes appeared around them, and they were squinting in the bright sunlight of mortal lands, and parked cars were around them. They were standing beside Travel’s car. “What did I do?” she said groggily. “You Travelled.” Ronnie said blankly. “I…teleported?” “I think it was a bit weirder than that.” he answered. “I think you took us on the Road. At any rate, we were up there, and now we’re here…and we’d better run.” Cornello closed the door of the large brown house behind them. He looked worried. And frustrated. The tanned girl was already lying on the couch, as carelessly and insolently as she walked. Her sneakers lay on the floor and her black-painted toes were bare. With a gesture she ignited a roaring fire in the big fireplace, and the warm room grew warmer. “You just don’t get it, do you, honeybuttons?” he said. “And what is there not to get, Cornie old man?” she said languidly. “You saw what happened.” Cornello rested his hands in the flames and closed his eyes in ecstasy. “I had them trapped.” he said. “Their minds were beaten down and crumpling, ready for my eyes. I did not know who she was, only that she was of the Six. I think you might have mentioned who she was before we drove them to the wall!” “Oh please.” she murmered, stretching luxuriously. “How was I to know the Lane girl? It’s been all of seven years since I saw her at nine. It wasn’t until we got close that I even recognized her.” “If you had spoken her name, I would have known, and hexed her before she could Travel.” Cornello said, pulling his hands from the fire. They glowed red-hot. “Now we must work a different magic.” “You could just round them up by law.” “It is not important whether we have them as slaves or not, only that we have them in the end. But we must make our island strong. It is time we used the spell of burning love.” “Do we have to do that one? I like my sex better when it doesn’t cook me alive.” Cornello caressed her with his burning hands. Her scanty clothing went up in ashes, but her flesh was unburnt. Pain and pleasure alike flickered in her eyes as he bent down to her. May was here now. Forest spent hours outside, wandering over the Mountain across from his home, or just sitting in the yard and staring at the lake. The trees were unfolding tiny wrinkled leaves, reddish-green on the maples, a brilliant glowing green on the beech-trees. Suddenly the grey-brown woods was soft with color, and the sky was reduced to distant spots seen through a yellow-green web. Bell found, when he started avoiding her, that her peculiar brother needed a lot of solitude, and left him alone. He sat up on one of the hills farther off one day. He had rambled farther than usual, leaving the hemlocks and deep pines and coming to a beechwood on a hilltop. Through a gap he saw a segment of Second Bay, glinting a deep ruffled blue. It was warm and soft out. “How is life with your full family, Forest?” Arheled had come silently, as he usually did. He still wore the plaid flannel shirt and brown corduroy he usually did, but the brown leather coat was laid aside. His hair was silver now, and he wore besides a short white beard. Forest felt both joyful and a little awed: this was no longer quite his friend the Man in Brown, this was Arheled. “Uh. It’s.” '' More than I could have hoped. I’m so glad my father is home. I’m so glad I have a sister and friend. Mom is so happy. He merely beamed and said nothing. “That is good.” said Arheled softly. “It gives me great joy to have caused at least a little happiness in these dark times.” “It’s all…” '' It’s spring! It’s soft and warm and sunny! '' “Only to the eyes of the body, Forest.” Arheled replied, gazing off at the lake. “To the mind, which is capable of holding many things in one apprehension, it is dark. Strange things are happening. Giant tornados have attacked the Midwest: 312 in a single day, Forest! Japan was destroyed by an earthquake. Oh, not pulverized, of course; but damaged badly none the less. Floods are wiping off the foolish cities along the Mississippi, built by men in their folly who thought they could build wherever they pleased and with their technology shunt away the floods.” “Bin Laden was killed.” “Ding dong, the wicked terrorist is dead.” Arheled said with restrained mockery. “To hear them celebrate, you would think the Dark Lord had fallen or something. But the Dark Lord is very much alive.” He fell silent, looking out at the fragment of the lake. “You can’t really see much from here.” said Forest. “There is a roof over all the hills of this land,” Arheled said in a murmering voice, “which the trees have created of their own limbs to block the view of heaven from the walkers beneath. For they are creatures of the day and children of the sun, and they want to hoard the stars for themselves. It is the men of old who humbled the ancient woods and made the great fields in which alone the stars can gaze at man.” “Some people can’t stand being in the dark unless the streetlights are on.” said Forest. Arheled nodded. “The children of my hills were content when they first came to walk under the dark and let the stars watch them pass. If light they needed, they bore a lanthorn. “But their hearts grew shrewd and hard, and they gazed upon my rivers and saw only water power, and on my streams there grew like fungi the factories of men. Had their money permitted, they would have put in enough lamps to shut forever from their sight the sky of the night and the host so fair and gleaming that stared down upon them so. Ever later burned their gas, and now whenever they string a new street up the sides of my hills the orange lamps follow, to blot from the heavens the sight of the stars.” “But the crowded houses that cluster on the Flat are the dwelling of men of iniquity, who would use the darkness to do their deeds of darkness without fear. The lights on the streets is our last defense against them, that we can see when they do evil and report before they escape.” said Forest. “Alas,” answered Arheled, “wherever the children of Adam gather close together there iniquity grows. So it was in the days when their buildings shut in my river and roofed him with walls, until I called to the clouds and sent his wrath upon the city and washed away the jetsam of man, cleansing the fungi from the banks and wiping out the spawn of greedy men.” “You caused the ’55 Flood??” said Forest. “Yes,” replied Arheled, “I did. I was allowed to call upon the weathers, even as I may yet do again in the utter need. None can see where the great struggle will go, or what it will take; but only if the past is made plain to you can you endure the coming of the Rider of the Darkness.” Forest only looked at the trees, a wild dismayed fascination raging in his heart. “You are astounded, are you not?” Arheled said quietly. “The Flood was the turning point in our history, and the start of the downfall of the factories of Winsted. Even after the Depression they clung to the Mad, and I knew that if they were not checked with power the river never would be clean, and soon might vanish utterly into concrete tunnels; and without the Daslenga would the Road walk rightly? So I summoned him and fed him, and with might he had not shown in a hundred years he washed Winsted clean, and in their shock they never dared pollute him anew with buildings. Only Union Pin remained, and it at last was conquered, and the Daslenga is free.” He looked down at Forest, and his voice softened. “There are hidden causes for the most mundane events. Sometimes men can see them, but seldom always, for if men realised the gods do work on them, it would undo the whole thing. Disasters are never accidental, Forest. There is always a cause in the realms of the spirit. Since that day in 1955 the city ceased to be industrial and growing and swelling, and became instead a country city, a town of quiet streets and crazy cabins, in which gathered eccentrics that no other place would foster. Even as it was the day I sent the great winds of 18 that felled three steeples to the ground, to trigger the construction of the stone fortresses, the Five Churches of Winsted.” “What are they for?” Arheled gave him a long, sad, ancient look. Even as the boy watched, his body began to crumble away to snow-powder. “For the end of the world.” he said as he dissolved. And Forest was left staring at an empty glade. Ronnie Wendy stood in his yard and stretched like a cat. The sun was clear and warm, so good after the week of raw, chill rainy weather they had just endured. There had been frosts on a couple mornings. But now the leaves were out, a deep and soft new green, filling the dull forests with dappled life. He’d harvested some leeks—onionlike wild bulbs that tasted really good fried—yesterday, and he was in two minds about whether to get some more or go for a swim. He decided to swim first and harvest after. Burrville had two parts, the main section where he now lived and the crossroads north by Pinewoods Rd: two restaurants, a motel and Hanes Quarry down the street. The Still River Turnpike (Winsted Rd) ran parallel to the bike path, and near the Hanes Quarry entrance a driveway led across the bike path and over Still River, crossing to the flats around Travis Pond. Ronnie lifted his bike over the chain and passed the rusted ruins of a water wheel, then biked between piles of dirt and rubble and emerged onto what he called the White Sands. The valley floor was perfectly flat; white sand roads curved by grey and pale green alder thickets, bright under the brilliant blue sky. The thickets fell away and he came out on Travis Pond, a series of wandering, incredibly deep kettleponds divided by abrupt peninsulas and one causeway of higher land, channels between islands. The deep blue water was fringed by reddish weed. It was a queer, half-dismal/half-bright sort of place. He swam off a large rock and spent some time afterward staring at the big fish prowling the greenish depths. “Isn’t it a pity you didn’t bring your pole!” said Arheled. “Never was much for fishing.” shrugged Ronnie. “Tell me, Arheled—are you a ghost? You vanish like one.” “I vanish like snow.” he corrected. “A ghost is a property pertaining to the rational animals, who are composed of body and soul in one nature. The body is destroyed and the ghost remains. But not all of that which can think are of the same potential. Some '' cannot '' be so divided, and some have no division to make, as the intellectual substances whom men name angels. How are you to know what is real and what is not?” “You asked me that before—well, through the Wild Man, that is. I thought I answered conclusively enough.” Arheled chuckled. “You struck the wall to prove that reality outside yourself exists, that your senses are capable of perceiving reality, and that therefore they can be trusted, and what they tell you is true. But Hunter Light says different, does he not?” “He claims that calculations must be accepted like scripture, despite their arriving at illogical conclusions and impossible assertions. He tells me that it must be accepted even though its’ answers are ‘counter-intuitive’, as if our fundamental knowledge of reality, gleaned from our senses’ input, was a mere matter of feelings. It is a faith that he is preaching, with doctrines of velocities and scriptures of coordinates, and it is a faith that I reject, for it contradicts what is self-evident.” “What are these assertions, Ronnie, the one who uncovers? Can you tell me them, and can you answer them?” Ronnie stared into the depths of the pond. “It is asserted that because two observers of the same event will see it at differing times, and because two events that seem simultaneous to one observer will always have angles from which they seem not simultaneous to someone else, therefore time is relative to the person observing it. “Further, because two travelers at differing angles will record differing times for light passing between them the farther apart they go, therefore past and future immediate to them become relative to the observer, owing to the differing perception of sequence. Also the discrepancy between measured times corresponds to the biological aging of the two travelers. Thus at speeds of light the discrepancy would increase to such an extent that if one travelled at this speed 20 years from Earth and 20 years back, 40 years for you, relative to Earth one would have travelled 24,000 light-years, and 48,004 years of Earth would have gone by.” “This only means that you aged 40 years during a period of 48,000 years.” said Arheled. “But Hunter made it seem as if '' my own time,'' and therefore Time in the abstract, had become relative.” said Ronnie. “As if many different Presents were oscilliating around each other, depending on which system of coordinates was used; that time is bound with matter, and can be warped by gravity, because it depends entirely for being upon the speed of light in vacuum.” “And is this true?” Arheled asked quietly. “It is clearly impossible.” said Ronnie, clenching his fist. “But I do not know why! I do not have the math to prove it wrong!” “Math is not needed to refute math that has passed beyond its’ domain.” Arheled answered. “When one science steps into the bounds of another science, it will become confused, for differing principles are used in each, as each science measures or studies differing aspects of Being. When physics tries to act like metaphysics, then metaphysics must be used to thrust it back. “The speed of light does not increase, and no matter can exceed it, they say. Therefore to travel 24,000 light-years would take 24,000 years of Time, even though he that is travelling would age only 20 years. This is logic. This is not intuition.” “Then what is your answer, Arheled?” “I answer that the assertions fail to take account of abstract reality.” Arheled said solemnly. “Reality is defined as that which is, the actual state of Creation in its’ essence. Matter being subject to change is governed by duration, the measurement of which will always vary if the means used are of changeable matter. And the force that powers duration is time, and this has two aspects, that touching matter and that touching spirit to govern matter. The first is subject to variation depending on the matter considered. The second governs not only matter but the relations of spirits to matter, and this is absolute.” “You mean in the sense that we cannot change it?” “The mode of governance is by means of a single continuous movement encompassing in it all material events and connecting all that happens, and this is called Present. The measurement of events is accidental to Time, but the Present is essential. However, because no two observations and measurements can fully coincide, it is nearly impossible to state exactly whether a pair of events occurred in one Now rather than in a Now continguous thereto. That the pair of events did occur in one and the same Now we are not at liberty to deny. However, because of the fallibility of measurements, the veracity of simultaneity can only be perceived by modes that make no use of such measurements. I.E, by spiritual perception.” “I wish Hunter Light could hear this.” “And he may, before much longer, if things continue on this path.” said Arheled. “I have never needed to add the Three Elders to the Six, but if the lord of Chaos is indeed in the world, who can tell?” “You never explained the time problem with the travellers.” “It is obvious, Ronmond, that the perception of the differing times is only an apparent one, and the measurements that depart from the reality, are, though seemingly correct in themselves, erroneous. Thus, the diagram representing Travellers A and B and their passings and light rays going between them, should be overlaid with a single line labeled NOW. It will then be apparent that A, B and the ray pass successive Nows and it will be possible in the abstract to isolate the positions of each at any moment of real Time, irrespective of the disparity of observing angles.” “Yes, I can see that. But how can you—“ “Ah, you do not see how this applies. It is evident that, however fast one moves, one is still in the same Time as all the rest of the material universe, only separated in local space by the increase of distance. From which it is impossible for Time to be accelerated or retarded by velocity or gravity, for irrespective of how many years seem to pass, they are joined by the Present and linked by the Now. To escape the Now they must leave the single universe and pass into spiritual realms not ruled by this Now.” “What about other worlds?” Arheled laughed. “Math cannot pierce beyond the Ilurambar, though it can guess all it wants.” “But the scientists talk of multiverses.” “Oh yes, layered like crackers all stacked in a package, little flat disks for the gods to eat!” He dropped his levity. “They are trespassing when they try to calculate the multiverse, for that is the domain of philosophy, and even that can only deal with possibilities and theories from what is known in this world. They cannot calculate other worlds. Other worlds are not subject to our straight line of Now, though being material even as ours they are subject to Time. Each world is ruled by different Lords, and each world in result is not the same. The Present bends and curves, each bend passing through a world whose time is faster than ours, or slower perhaps; and yet from Above, from Heaven outside of Time, all happens in one gigantic Now, and at any moment it is possible to look down on the Worlds and say, “In this moment such and such is happening here, and over there, and in all the worlds combined.” Yet ours was firstborn, and our time is the measurement of theirs; and when our world ends all worlds will end. For this is the world in which God was made a Man.” “Was the Incarnation only for this world?” “The Redemption redeemed all worlds, Ronmond, and from this one salvation flows to all others. Narnia is wrong; there is no Aslan dying in that world, or some other Incarnation dying in this other world. One sufficed for all. The worlds are not lonely strangers drifting in voids, or dimensions overlaying connectionlessly; they are strung together like beads upon a necklace and there are doors that move between them, and those that walk those doors, where calculation expires and coordinates fail.” “I’ve heard the multiverse people say that every decision causes an alternate reality to branch off, and this is the cause of the parallel worlds.” “What is this, Bionicle?” mocked Arheled. “Makes pretty good fantasy, but very poor theology.” “I know,” agreed Ronnie, “considering that God would have to be calling into being a whole new version of what already exists, creating new souls to inhabit duplicates of those who live here—ridiculous.” “The other worlds came into being when God spoke the Seven Words, though not all were readied at the same time as ours. We have spoken well, Ronmond Wendtho. Go forth in certitude.” May came to Winsted, steadily warm and lovely. The first week had been raw, cloudy and frequently rainy, but after that the weather remained remarkably even. Clear dry days of bright sun in the 70s, with the forests blooming a beautiful yellowy green, the fresh new green of opened leaves filling the town with color. Cherry trees burst into fluffy masses of pink and white. The night-green hemlocks were dotted with pale green buds of new growth. Brooke Pond felt so happy she actually skipped a few times as she walked. It was warm, she had the day off, and she wanted to swim. Her car keys jingled as she skipped. “I danced in the morning when the world was begun…” she sang all at once, her low quiet soprano loud in the open concrete area. She looked at the “bridge” to the old concrete factory, which she hadn’t seen since the expedition to Temple Fell, and laughed when she remembered Bell’s trepidation. The air, though dry, was balmy and the sun felt pleasantly hot. Electing not to cross, Brooke went up a dirt ramp through a gash in a high dike, and came out onto the old road. In the days before the ’55 Flood and the building of the great berm and the new highway climbing up around it, Rt. 44 had followed besides Mad River. In the ‘40s a “macadam” or concrete-bed road had superseded the old winding back-country road, but an old loop of it between rock walls had been left behind. The great berm had cut this off in its’ turn and the highway now mounted placidly through a long manmade gorge, far off on the right, and the murmer of traffic came through the pines. The ancient loop mounted behind the ruined foundation and concrete slab of the old factory, barred by a chain-link gate that was now cut open. Past this, walls of broken rock rose on each side, a gash o the left allowing drainage: it was by this that Brooke had entered. She walked up the old road in its’ shallow cutting, dusty dark-green hemlocks leaning overhead on both sides. After a hundred yards the abandoned concrete road slanted in from the right, blocking and usurping the course of the old road. The flat asphalt was completely buried in leaves, save for a strip of purpley grey in the middle. ATV tracks led up the bank on the left, and these took her into an open maple forest. Brooke glanced over at what was left of the old tent some silly campers had left here last autumn. The fire-pit showed fresh ashes. The forest around her was a clear, brilliant, pale new-green, the night-green hemlocks and dark old rocks dusty with dark moss contrasting beautifully. She followed the path as it twisted downhill among rocks and the roots of old trees, down into the beeches and witch-hazels beside the river. The sun came out again and suddenly the valley lit with pools of light. Mad River murmered and chattered over many stones, and here and there immense rounded boulders showed a pale grey in the riverbed. The water was a lovely dark green and dark blue, white in the rapids. It was perhaps fifteen feet across at some points. In front of her was a beach of cobbles and a broad, chest-deep pool where the river beat up against a stony ledge before turning and falling over a dike of stone past a huge single boulder. Below this were two big boulders, islands in the current, dwarfing the slender channels. The far shore was an outjutting ledge, and the six-foot wide channel there was over her head. Jumping off that ledge was one of her favorite activities. Brooke stripped to her suit and stretched out lazily in the sun, feeling like a lizard. The rocks weren’t a good place to sun for very long, but long enough to get her good and hot. She smiled as she compared the leaf-green of her suit to the hazel leaves around her. The sun made her feel both sleepy and exuberant: it was a lovely sensation. She thought back to the other times she had come here, always alone; when she brought Delilah once it completely ruined the place. She loved it here. It was a good place to just sit and laze and feel time being totally wasted. A soft breeze pattered through the twigs and tickled her skin. She felt like purring. After a while the sun got too hot and with a smile of pure bliss she got up and waded carefully in: the round stones underwater were slippery. She climbed up onto the bigger of the two rocks. The deep pool was in complete green shade, and a yellow birch limb from a tree atop the ledge grew right out to where she was. Grabbing it Brooke swung herself out, hand over hand, the slender branch swaying crazily and her legs flying and churning every which way. Thank goodness no boys were around to laugh at the spectacle she was making. She never had made it to the ledge; her arms always gave out and dropped her straight down into the pool. This time was no exception and she plunged in with a gasp of laughter. Floating in the cold but delicious water, she let the current carry her to where the ledge shelved out at the pool’s end and pulled herself out, laughing. She sprang up on the green mossy lip above the deepest spot and jumped in again. The water felt even better. She climbed onto the ledge and sat down in the sun to warm up, sitting on the moss and swinging her legs over the edge. She thought back to another swim, to the sudden feel of rough lips upon hers, warm hands on her back, remembering how she had reacted to his embrace…it was sweet to think about. She almost wished she could see him again. It would be so romantic to be wooed like that…She suddenly looked up, fancying she heard voices talking at a distance. There it was, like men in rather tenor voices speaking too far off for words to be made out. After listening for a while, however, she realized it was just a trick of the water chuckling under the rocks. She sighed dreamily. The breeze was drying her; in a minute she would jump in again. She wanted to dream right now, of rough beard and long hair and warm hands… “It is not wise to remember too much, dirla.” “But I like remembering…” she murmered, smiling faintly as she gazed into the lovely green. “If you long too much for him, he will come to you; and you will be under his power. And I do not desire the child of the streams to be under the power of the Wild Man of Winsted.” Arheled was sitting on the boulder, facing her, his jeans and pale shirt as grey as the rock. His long sleeves were rolled up, exposing hairy brown arms like corded wood. She was not startled, somehow; it felt as if he had been here for a long time. Nothing about Arheled was sudden. She felt suddenly abashed. “I know what you mean, about wishing for him; I mean, it was just…I’ve never…I wish I could be, well, courted by him. On a date, you know? Can he do ''that?” Arheled gave a peculiar grimace. For a moment Brooke thought she’d offended him, until she realized he was struggling with laughter. He gave up and let it ring out over the valley. “That would be the day!” he guffawed. “The Wild Man of Winsted stooping to the gentling of a maid! The Wild Man purring at the strokes of a girl! The world’s at an end!” “Haven’t '' you ever been in love?” she said, a little piqued. Arheled managed to stop laughing. “''In '' love is what humans do; their passions rule them and they sway as they are blown. But such as I…look up there, girl, would you? No, up higher. At the sun, there. Can you see whether it is round or square? Or naturally rayed? No? Can’t even look at it, can you?” He leaned toward her, and his face was suddenly stern, grim, terrible; she found she could not look straight at it anymore. “Nor can you fathom me.” “I’m sorry.” she murmered, drawing her knees up to her chin and staring at the river. “There is no need to be sorrowful for your limitations.” Arheled replied. He stood next to her when she looked up. “It is when you allow your limitations to destroy your capabilities that you must and should be sorry. You cannot help your passions. You can help what they do.” Brooke covered her plunging cleavage self-consciously. “I hope you don’t mind my suit. I wore it here ‘cause I knew I’d be alone.” “I am not a being of lust.” replied Arheled. “Your guardian angel sees you in the bathtub, but he is not disturbed! It is in relation to those who have lust that clothing or its’ lack becomes important. But I am glad you are conscious of this importance.” “Yeah, well, my dad doesn’t mind bikinis and my mom never cares, but I feel a Christian should at least try to be a contrast to the rest of the world, you know? I mean, my grandmother would regard even a regular two-piece as scandalous, but on a beach today that’s actually moderate.” “Immodesty is governed by whatever causes lust. In cultures where much nudity is common, that which arouses no lust is modest, even if more Christian cultures would regard it as immoral.” Arheled fell silent, gazing out over the narrow sunny valley. Mad River murmered endlessly past. “Can you hear him?” Arheled asked suddenly. Brooke listened, but all she heard was the odd echo of water like distant voices. “That’s just a trick of the river.” she said. “Rivers play no tricks.” he answered. “They speak. It is very seldom that the Mad can talk, for he is not a long river; but here, he can be heard. For this is '' Nanto Nenlë'', the Valley of Voices upon '' Daslenga Dílendo'', the Angry Flood.” “Those are beautiful names.” “You are the one who calls upon the streams, Brooke. Remember the names. For the wrath of Daslenga is consumed and silenced by the Still River, Tul Fardonol the Still-Unmoving, who crawls north in contrary to the way he should be flowing. And he in turn is swallowed by '' Crond Dílendo'', the Wide Stream of Riverton whom you know as Sandy Brook. And he pours himself into the Farmington, '' Pombothowd'' the Strong-Deep. But the shortest stream is also the most important, '' Slunchla Nenlund'' the Plunging Shout, who falls from the Long Lake to the Mad in less than a quarter mile. Key and chief among them is the Mad, Daslenga Dílendo, for angry is he.” “Is he the river of silver that bears up the Herald?” Arheled gazed at her for a moment. “He is not, and he is, both at once and not at all. Their relationships are difficult to bring down into words.” “I don’t get you at all.” He nodded. “Forest might understand, although dimly; he is most important of the Six. Your province is to call the streams, not the rider of the streams; and the relations of the streams and of the stars is too much for you to comprehend.” He rose to his feet. “Arheled,” Brooke said in a small voice. “Will I ever get married?” “Well, that’s a weighty question for a pretty lass! The future is not my domain. It is not anyone’s domain.” Brooke looked piqued. “Well, Deli was saying the other day she gets little flashes of what future is ahead for people she touches. I asked her if she saw a future for me and she said I would never marry. Then she started laughing.” “So little Delilah thinks she’s a witch now, does she! Maybe she has super powers, or she can speak the tongues of angels and of men! Perhaps she can spoil your butter or work your loom when you’re not in the room, or see through walls and watch the boys undress! Or look into the hidden doors that not even the Son of God has opened!” “Well, she seemed so certain.” defended Brooke. “Oh, when it comes to the hereafter, you always are so certain! As certain, I suppose, as the King of the Dead!” “Who’s he?” “You’ve never heard? Why, didn’t you know? “The King of the Dead He had no head And it’s all that he could say ‘Although I am dead I have no head O pitiful the day! For within my breast there’ll be no rest Without my head on me For though I am dead I have no head It’s vexatious to me How I manage to speak without any squeak For no head is on me! And how I can see just where I will be Is more than I can say— For I’m the King of the Dead I have no head And it’s all that I can say Although I am dead I have no head O pitiful the day! For he’s the King of the Dead, '' ''He—has—no—heeeead '' ''And it’s all that he can say!” Brooke was laughing so hard at the rollicking tune she almost rolled off the ledge. “Oh, stop it! That’s ridiculous! Oh man.” she sighed. “That’s a good one. Who is the King of the Dead?” “Whoever he be, it is important to remember that he has no head.” said Arheled lightly, over his shoulder, as he walked up through the mossy rocks and hemlocks behind the ledge. There the rail grade’s bank rose like a steep cliff. He lifted one hand and headed into the trees. Brooke waved back. After she’d listened for his footsteps for a while and heard nothing, she decided he must really have gone. “I’m all warm now anyway.” she said aloud. “Think I’ll go jump in again.”